


Unforgiven

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Fall of Doma, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: Death rises in Doma like steam from a teacup; Cyan's blade cannot fight poison.





	Unforgiven

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Asphyxiation."

The soldier beside him coughs. Cyan glances at him, but it is a single sound, dry and light, as of dust in the throat. There is seemingly no cause for concern. He turns his eyes back to the Imperial camp across the river, where everyone is bustling wildly. Vast machines are spun to life, and Cyan tenses, but the machines seem stationary. Their fan blades whirl and air flows into them, but they do not move, nor unleash elemental bolts upon the walls. It is unusual, and therefore worrisome, but there is no obvious threat.

The soldier coughs again, harder this time, a harsh and hacking sound. He doubles over, his sword-hand pressed to his chest and his shield-arm dangling, struggling to draw air. Down the wall, another soldier is coughing—all of them are coughing. Their faces go gray, their eyes bulging. Cyan feels nothing. He looks at the river, sees the purple— _purple?_ —trails in the water, the thin oily sheen and the rising wisps of smoke, and the horrified realization strikes him.

"Sir Cyan!" The sentry behind him must have reached the same conclusion.

With regret in every syllable, Cyan says what they are both thinking. "It must be poison!"

The soldier swears, and Cyan does not reprimand him. "We must warn the king!"

He is old for a soldier, but he trains devotedly. The run to the throne room is short enough. He fears the worst when he sees that even here, inside the walls, the guards are doubled over, leaving the door unprotected. He does not stop to introduce himself or to aid them, but his greater duty is to his king. He flings the door open and calls to His Excellency.

"Who's there?" The king is wheezing, but not coughing. Perhaps he is protected enough here. Cyan pulls his scarf loose, pours water on it from his canteen as he runs the length of a throne room that is too damned large. What works for smoke should surely work here.

"Cyan, Your Excellency." He drops to his knees, presses the wet cloth over the king's face without asking permission. On another day, that would be intolerable familiarity.

"Oh, Cyan." He wheezes, coughs, but it is not as bad as the others have been. "My sight is failing," he says between coughs. "I cannot see your face."

"Excellency! Please, you must be strong!" Cyan fumbles for his canteen, and offers it to his liege.

The king bats it away feebly. "Cyan...you have defended this realm since the days of my father before me." Another racking cough takes him, and this time he cannot muster the strength to refuse the canteen. He swallows hard. "I thank you for your service. Forgive me...I failed to protect our kingdom." His head lolls back, his eyes half closed, and his breath wheezes and whistles.

"No, Excellency, the fault lies not with thee!" Cyan curses himself for not thinking the Empire would resort to poison. He does not know their general personally, but the whole world knows of General Leo's vaunted honor, and Cyan had thought the man would meet them only in open battle. He would be surprised the lies had spread so consistently, if he did not hold the entire Empire to be lying dogs. No honorable man would poison an enemy.

"I fear for your family," the king says. "My chest burns...with every breath...." He reaches out, his hand grasping at empty air.

"Speak not, my lord! Save thy strength!" He cannot have failed thus. He cannot have left his king so open to attack, and yet the failure is right in front of him, impossible to deny. Behind him, he hears footsteps and he reaches for his sword, but it is only a soldier in Doman colors, and he relaxes.

"Go...to your....family," the king insists, his hand at last finding Cyan's shoulder, but there is no strength in his grip, and his hand slides right off the lacquered plates of Cyan's armor. He tries to lift his head, and then he goes limp, and the throne room is too silent.

"Excellency!" There is no point; the wheezing has stopped, and though he mislikes the truth, he faces it plainly. With gentle hands he closes the eyes of a king to whom he taught swordplay and tactics, who entrusted him with all the defenses of the kingdom, who asked his counsel in matters martial, political, and personal alike. It is true that his service had begun to this man's father, but _this_ is the king he served the longest, and loved as he might have a son.

_A son._

He surges to his feet. "There may still be survivors in the castle!" He says it like a prayer to the soldier, and races for his own quarters. He doesn't know where the soldier goes, only that he has another son who is in danger, and he must reach them.

As he runs, the amulet Elayne gave him at the New Year bounces on his chest, and he thinks he might have her to thank for his apparent resistance to the poison. His quarters are central in the castle, the most protected save only the king's own, and if the throne room shielded the king enough, there is a chance.

He forces himself to slow down, to open the door slowly and slide in to close it behind him lest he allow too much poison in, rather than crashing through it as his fear tells him to do. Yet when he turns, he sees that it was for nothing. Elayne lies sprawled on the floor, and she is not coughing.

"Elayne!" He drops to his knees beside her, and lifts her limp body into his arms. She was far younger than he when they wed, but in the aftermath of poison her face wears all the years between them and more, dry and cracked like old parchment. "Don't leave me, Elayne," he pleads with her, though it is plain her spirit is already flown. A trail of gray-green spittle mars her left cheek, where she lay on the floor. He touches her cheek softly. She gave him a son, and kept their household in perfect order so that he need not concern himself with it, and he gave her an absent husband wed first to duty. "This is unpardonable," he says, as much of himself as of the Empire. She knew who it was she wed, but he could have given her more while Doma was at peace.

She deserved more.

A faint sound comes from the bed, and he lowers her to the floor quickly. His last hope shrivels and dies in his chest as he sees his son in the sea of blankets. "Owain!" He runs to him, but though Elayne clearly had the same thought as he and tied a wet cloth around Owain's head, it was not enough. The little boy who had been determined to become as fine a warrior as his sire will never hold more than a wooden practice blade. He will never again complain about the boredom of fishing.

He does not realize he is shouting until the words tear his throat in a way the poison cannot. He fumbles with the pendant, places it on his son, but he knows it is too late, and the poison burns in his lungs as he does so.

Still, he wants to leave it on Owain, to give his son that chance—but all that is left for Owain is for Cyan to avenge him.

To avenge them both.

He rises, his sword-hand on the hilt of his katana, and turns toward the entrance of Doma Castle.

The Empire may have slain her people, but Cyan will show them that they cannot slay Doma herself. He will not allow it. They will pay dearly for this act of dishonor.

And they shall ever be unforgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> So I know technically Kefka poisons Doma's water, but also everyone just keels over at the same time, which suggests there may also be an aerial component? (Yes, I know the futility of asking for logic from JRPG drama.) Anyway, hence this thought.


End file.
